“I’d better check on Hattie and get going.”
“How did you get her to sleep?”
“That fever knocked her out. I gave her enough Tylenol to dent it, but watch for dehydration.”
Buck didn’t respond. He was studying the sky.
“Buck?”
He turned. “Yeah.”
“She was moaning and mumbling about something she feels guilty about.”
“I know.”
“You do?”
“We were urging her to receive Christ, and she said she wasn’t worthy. She’s done some things, she says, and she can’t accept that God would still love her.”
“Did she tell you what those things were?”
“No.”
“Then I shouldn’t say.”
“If it’s something you think I should know, let’s have it.”
“It’s crazy.”
“Nothing would surprise me anymore.”
“She’s carrying a tremendous load of guilt about Amanda and Bruce Barnes. Amanda is Chloe’s father’s wife?”
“Yeah, and I told you all about Bruce. What about them?”
“She cried, telling me that she and Amanda were going to fly together from Boston to Baghdad. When Hattie told Amanda she was changing plans and flying to Denver, Amanda insisted on going with her. Hattie kept telling me, ‘Amanda knew I had no relatives in Denver. She thought she knew what I was up to. And she was right.’ She told me Amanda actually canceled her reservation for Baghdad and was on her way to the counter to buy a ticket to Denver on Hattie’s plane. Hattie pleaded with her not to do this. The only way she could keep Amanda from going was to swear that she herself would not go if Amanda tried to accompany her. Amanda made her promise she would not do anything stupid in Denver. Hattie knew she meant not having an abortion. She promised Amanda she would not.”
“What’s she feeling so bad about?”
“She says Amanda went back to get on the original flight to Baghdad but that it was now sold out. She told Hattie she wasn’t interested in waiting on a standby list and that she would still be more than happy to accompany her on her flight west. Hattie refused, and she believes Amanda boarded that plane to Baghdad. She said over and over that she should have been on it too, and she wishes she had been. I told her she shouldn’t say things like that and she said, ‘Then why couldn’t I have let Amanda come with me? She’d still be alive.’”
“You haven’t met my father-in-law or Amanda yet, Floyd, but Rayford doesn’t believe Amanda got on that plane. We don’t know that she did.”
“But if she wasn’t on that plane and didn’t go with Hattie, where is she? Hundreds of thousands died in the earthquake. Realistically, don’t you think you would have heard from her by now if she had survived?”
Buck watched the gathering clouds. “I don’t know,” he said. “It’s likely that if she’s not dead, she’s hurt. Maybe, like Chloe, she can’t contact us.”
“Maybe. Uh, Buck, there were a couple of other issues.”
“Don’t hold back.”
“Hattie said something about what she knew about Amanda.”
Buck froze. Was it possible? He tried to maintain composure. “What was it she supposedly knew?”
“Some secret she should have told but now can’t tell.”
Buck was afraid he knew what it was. “You said there was something else?”
Now the doctor appeared nervous. “I’d like to attribute this to delirium,” he said.
“Shoot.”
“I took a blood sample. I’m going to check it for food poisoning. I’m worried that my colleagues in Denver might have poisoned her in advance of the projected hit. I asked her what she had eaten out there, and she caught on to what I suspected. She shuddered and appeared petrified. I helped her lie down. She grabbed my shirt and pulled me close. She said, ‘If Nicolae had me poisoned, I’ll be his second victim.’ I asked what she meant. She said, ‘Bruce Barnes. Nicolae had him poisoned overseas. He made it all the way back to the States before he was hospitalized. Everyone thinks he died in the bombing, and maybe he did. But if he wasn’t dead already, he would have died even if the hospital had never been bombed. And I knew all about it. I’ve never told anyone.’”
Buck was shaken. “I only wish you could have met Bruce,” he mumbled.
“It would have been an honor. You can know for sure about his death, you know. It’s not too late for an autopsy.”
“It wouldn’t bring him back,” Buck said. “But just knowing gives me a reason. . . .”
“A reason?”
“An excuse, anyway. To murder Nicolae Carpathia.”
CHAPTER 20
Though water provided nearly the same weightlessness as outer space, pushing debris up and out and displacing rows of seats with bodies attached was grueling. Rayford’s light was dim and his air supply low. His scalp wound throbbed, and he felt light-headed. He assumed Mac was in the same shape, but neither signaled any intention of quitting.
Rayford expected to feel awful searching corpses, but deep foreboding overwhelmed him. What a macabre business! Victims were bloated, horribly disfigured, hands in fists, arms floating. Their hair waved with the motion of the water. Most eyes and mouths were open, faces black, red, or purple.
Rayford felt a sense of urgency. Mac tapped him, pointed to his gauge, and held up ten fingers. Rayford tried to work faster, but having checked only sixty or seventy bodies, there was no way he could finish without another air tank. He could work only five more minutes.
Directly below was an intact middle section row. It faced the front of the plane, as did all the others, but had rotated a little farther. All he saw in his fading light were the backs of five heads and the heels of ten feet. Seven shoes had come loose. He had never understood the phenomenon of the contraction of human feet in the face of violent collision. He estimated this row had been driven forward as many as twenty-five feet. He motioned to Mac to grab the armrest at one end while he took the other. Mac held up one finger, as if this needed to be the last effort before they surfaced. Rayford nodded.
As they tried to pull the row upright, it caught something and they had to reposition it and yank again. Mac’s end came up slightly ahead of Rayford’s, but when Rayford jostled his it finally rotated. The five bodies now rested on their backs. Rayford shined his flickering light into the panic-stricken face of an elderly man in a three-piece suit. The man’s bloated hands floated before Rayford’s face. He gently nudged them aside and directed his beam to the next passenger. She was salt-and-pepper-haired. Her eyes were open, her expression blank. The neck and face were discolored and swollen, but her arms did not rise as the others. She had apparently grabbed her laptop computer case and hooked its strap in the crook of her arm. Entwining her fingers, she had died with her hands pressed between her knees, the computer bag secure at her side.
Rayford recognized the earrings, the necklace, the jacket. He wanted to die. He could not take his eyes from hers. The irises had lost all color, and her image was one he would fight to forget. Mac hurried to him and gripped a bicep in each hand. Rayford felt his gentle tug. Dazed, he turned to Mac.
Mac tapped urgently on Rayford’s tank. Rayford was drifting, having lost sense of what he was doing. He didn’t want to move. He suddenly became aware his heart was thudding and he would soon be out of oxygen. He didn’t want Mac to know. He was tempted to suck in enough water to flood his lungs and reunite him with his beloved.
It was too much to hope for. He should have known Mac would not have used up his own air supply as quickly. Mac pried apart Amanda’s fingers and pulled the case strap over his head so the laptop hung behind his tanks.
Rayford felt Mac behind him, his forearms under his armpits. Rayford wanted to fight him off, but Mac had apparently thought ahead. At Rayford’s first hint of resistance, Mac yanked both hands out and pinned Rayford’s arms back. Mac kicked mightily and steered them out of the carcass of the 747 and into the rushing current. He
made a controlled ascent.
Rayford had lost the will to live. When they broke the surface, he spit out his regulator and with it the sobs gushed out. He cried a fierce, primal wail that pierced the night and reflected the agonizing loneliness of his soul. Mac talked to him, but Rayford was not listening. Mac manhandled him, kicking, staying afloat, dragging him toward the bank. While Rayford’s system greedily took in the life-giving air, the rest of him was numb. He wondered if he could swim if he wanted to. But he didn’t want to. He felt sorry for Mac, working so hard to push a bigger man up the muddy slope onto the sand.
Rayford continued to bawl, the sound of his despair frightening even himself. But he could not stop. Mac yanked off his own mask and popped out his mouthpiece, then reached for Rayford’s. He unstrapped Rayford’s tanks and set them aside. Rayford rolled over and lay motionless on his back.
Mac peeled back Rayford’s torn headliner to reveal blood inside his suit. With his head and face bare, Rayford’s cries turned to moans. Mac sat on his haunches and breathed deeply. Rayford watched like a cat, waiting for him to relax, to step back, to believe this was over.
But it was not over. Rayford had truly believed, truly felt Amanda had survived and that he would be reunited with her. He had been through so much in the last two years, but there had always been grace in just enough measure to keep him sane. Not now. He didn’t even want it. Ask God to carry him through? He could not face five more years without Amanda.
Mac stood and began unzipping his own wet suit. Rayford slowly lifted his knees and dug his heels deep into the sand. He pushed so hard he felt the strain deep in both hamstrings as the thrust carried him over the edge. As if in slow motion, Rayford felt cool air on his face as he dropped headfirst into the water. He heard Mac swear and shout, “Oh, no you don’t!”
Mac would have to slip off his own tanks before jumping in. Rayford only hoped he could elude him in the dark or be lucky enough to have Mac land on him and knock him unconscious. His body plummeted through the water, then turned and began to rise. He moved not a finger, hoping the Tigris would envelop him forever. But somehow he could not will himself to gulp in the water that would kill him.
He felt the shock and heard Mac splash past him. Mac’s hands brushed him as he slid past feet first. Rayford couldn’t muster the energy to resist. From deep in his heart came sympathy for Mac, who didn’t deserve this. It wasn’t fair to make him work so hard. Rayford carried his own weight enough on the way back to the bank to show Mac he was finally cooperating. As he hauled himself up onto the sand again, he fell to his knees and pressed his cheek to the ground.
“I have no answers for you right now, Ray. Just hear me. To die in this river tonight, you’re going to have to take me with you. You got that?”
Rayford nodded miserably.
Without another word, Mac pulled Rayford to his feet. He examined Rayford’s wound with his fingers in the darkness. He removed Rayford’s fins, stacked them with the mask on top of his tanks, and handed the set to Rayford. Mac picked up his own gear and led the way back to the chopper. There he stored the gear, helped Rayford out of his wet suit like a little boy getting ready for bed, and tossed him a huge towel. They changed into dry clothes.
Without warning, Rayford’s punctured scalp felt as if it were being pelted by rocks. He covered his head and bent at the waist but now felt the same sharp stings on his arms, his neck, his back. Had he pushed too far? Had he been foolish to continue a dive with an open wound? He peeked as Mac lurched toward the chopper.
“Get in, Ray! It’s hailing!”
Buck had always enjoyed storms. At least before he lived through the wrath of the Lamb. As a boy he had sat before the picture window in his Tucson home and watched the rare thunderstorm. Something about the weather since the Rapture, however, spooked him.
Dr. Charles left instructions on how to care for Hattie, then departed for Kenosha. As the afternoon steadily grew darker, Chloe found extra blankets for the dozing Hattie while Tsion and Buck closed windows.
“I am taking only half a risk,” Tsion said. “I am going to run my computer on batteries until the storm passes, but I will remain connected somehow.”
Buck laughed. “For once I am able to correct the brilliant scholar,” he said. “You forget we are running the electricity on a gas-powered generator, unlikely to be affected by the storm. Your phone line is connected to the dish on the roof, the highest point here. If you are worried about lightning, you’d be better to disconnect the phone and connect the power.”
“I will never be mistaken for an electrician,” Tsion said, shaking his head. “The truth is, I need not be connected to the Internet for a few hours either.” He went upstairs.
Buck and Chloe sat next to each other at the foot of Hattie’s bed. “She sleeps too much,” Chloe said. “And she’s so pale.”
Buck was lost in his thoughts of the dark secrets that burdened Hattie. What would Rayford think of the possibility that Bruce had been poisoned? Rayford always said it was strange how peaceful Bruce looked compared to the other victims of the bombing. Doctors had come to no conclusions about the illness he had brought back from the Third World. Who would have dreamed Carpathia might be behind that?
Buck also still struggled with his killing of the Global Community guard. The video had been shown over and over on television news channels. He couldn’t bear to see it again, though Chloe insisted it was clear from the tape he had had no choice. “More people would have died, Buck,” she said. “And one of them would have been you.”
It was true. He could come to no other conclusion. Why couldn’t he feel a sense of satisfaction or even accomplishment from it? He was not a battle-minded man. And yet here he was on the front lines.
Buck took Chloe’s hand and pulled her close. She laid her cheek on his chest, and he brushed the hair from her wounded face. Her eye, still swollen shut and morbidly discolored, seemed to be improving. He touched her forehead with his lips and whispered, “I love you with my whole heart.”
Buck glanced at Hattie. She had not moved for an hour.
And the hail came.
Buck and Chloe stood and watched out the window as the tiny balls of ice bounced in the yard. Tsion hurried downstairs. “Oh, my! Look at this!”
The sky grew black, and the hailstones got bigger. Only slightly smaller than golf balls now, they rattled against the roof, clanged off the downspouts, thundered on the Range Rover, and the power failed. A chirp of protest burst from Tsion, but Buck assured him, “The hail has just knocked the cord out, that’s all. Easily fixed.”
But as they watched, the sky lit up. But it wasn’t lightning. The hailstones, at least half of them, were in flames!
“Oh, dear ones!” Tsion said. “You know what this is, do you not? Let us pull Hattie’s bed away from the window just in case! The angel of the first Trumpet Judgment is throwing hail and fire to the earth.”
Rayford and Mac had left their scuba equipment on the ground near the chopper. Now protected by the Plexiglas bubble of the tiny cockpit, Rayford felt as if he were inside a popcorn popper. As the hailstones grew, they pinged off the oxygen tanks and drilled the helicopter. Mac started the engine and set the blades turning, but he was going nowhere. He would not leave the scuba equipment, and helicopters and hailstorms did not mix.
“I know you don’t want to hear this, Ray,” he shouted over the din, “but you need to leave that wreckage and your wife’s body right where they lie. I don’t like it or understand it any more than you do, but I believe God is going to get you through this. Don’t shake your head. I know she was everything to you. But God left you here for a purpose. I need you. Your daughter and son-in-law need you. The rabbi you’ve told me so much about, he needs you too. All I’m saying is, don’t make any decisions when your emotions are raw. We’ll get through this together.”
Rayford was disgusted with himself, but everything Mac—the brand-new believer—said sounded like so many hollow platitudes. True o
r not, it wasn’t what he wanted to hear. “Tell me the truth, Mac. Did you check her forehead for the sign?”
Mac pursed his lips and did not respond.
“You did, didn’t you?” Rayford pressed.
“Yes, I did.”
“And it wasn’t there, was it?”
“No, it was not.”
“What am I supposed to think of that?”
“How should I know, Ray? I wasn’t a believer before the earthquake. I don’t know that you had a mark on your forehead before that either.”
“I probably did!”
“Maybe you did, but didn’t Dr. Ben-Judah write later about how believers were starting to notice the sign on each other? That came after the earthquake. If they had died in the quake, they wouldn’t have had the mark either. And even if they had it before, how do we know it’s still there when we die?”
“If Amanda wasn’t a believer, she probably was working for Carpathia,” Rayford spat. “Mac, I don’t think I could handle that.”
“Think of David,” Mac said. “He’ll be looking to us for leadership and guidance, and I’m newer at this than he is.”
When plummeting tongues of fire joined the hailstones, Rayford just stared. Mac said, “Wow!” over and over. “This is like the ultimate fireworks!”
Huge hailstones plopped into the river and floated downstream. They accumulated on the bank and turned the sand white like snow. Snow in the desert. Flaming darts sizzled and hissed as they hit the water. They made the same sound when they settled atop the hailstones on shore, and they did not burn out right away.
The chopper lights illuminated an area of twenty feet in front of the craft. Mac suddenly unclipped his belt and leaned forward. “What is that, Ray? It’s raining, but it’s red! Look at that! All over the snow!”
“It’s blood,” Rayford said, a peace flooding his soul. It did not assuage his grief or take away his dread over the truth about Amanda. But this show, this shower of fire and ice and blood, reminded him yet again that God is faithful. He keeps his promises. While our ways are not his ways and we can never understand him this side of heaven, Rayford was assured again that he was on the side of the army that had already won this war.